"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson

Big passenger space liners had special safety features for each cabin.

...Suddenly he grinned, pointed to a circular steel plate in the wall.

"How about the escape port?"

...Each of the cabins was fitted with an escape port, a miniature airlock. In the event of a crash or fire, the passengers had only to don space suits to escape into the void, where possible rescue ships might pick them up...

He swung open the airtight plate, revealing a cylindrical space in which one person might lie.

"It all works automatically. When this inner door is closed, the outer one opens, then shuts again. The rush of escaping air forces the person in the lock out."